The Judy Garland Show: Too Much Turmoil

March 16, 2026March 8, 2026 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

Our theme for March is “Variety is the Spice of Life.” We are looking at several variety shows that debuted in the sixties and seventies. Today we are learning about Judy Garland’s show. It’s hard to even know what to call this show. There was constant turmoil during the season it was on the air. It changed personnel, titles, formats, and all this after Garland and CBS had been at odds on past projects before this one even began.

Garland had not been comfortable committing to a weekly series, but she ran into some financial difficulties that forced her to rethink her views on television. When this show was being planned, Garland and CBS had been feuding for five years. Garland had been given a $300,000 contract with CBS to produce three specials. The first special in 1956 had great ratings, but then things fell apart. Garland’s husband and manager Sid Luft could not find any common ground with the network on the format of the second special. Garland filed a lawsuit for libel and breach of contract.

In 1961, as a negotiation of sorts, Garland and CBS agreed to try the specials again. In 1962 her special with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra aired and received four Emmy nominations. At that point, CBS and Garland began to talk about a weekly series beginning in 1963. The third special with Phil Silvers and Robert Goulet was a pilot for the new series. It also received an Emmy nomination.

The show was cancelled after 26 episodes. Those 26 episodes had three different producers.

George Schlatter produced the first five episodes of the series. The job was originally offered to Bob Banner, but he declined because he was producing a series for Garry Moore and he didn’t want to move from California to New York. When he said no, Bob Finkel was approached, and he declined for the same reason. To make it more complicated, the network offered the job to a local guy, Bill Hobin, who worked with Sing Along with Mitch and was already on the east coast. He accepted the offer, only to learn that people associated with the show had also offered the job to George Schlatter who was willing to move to New York, and he had also accepted the position. It was settled with Schlatter retaining the producer role and Hobin becoming director, an awkward way to begin.

Schlatter got busy hiring. He brought on Mort Lindsey as orchestra conductor, Gar Smith as art director, Edith Head as costume designer, Mel Torme as musical arranger, and Danny Daniels as choreographer.

Schlatter hired Jerry Van Dyke as a series regular, and a few recurring pieces were created. In addition to performing, Garland had a segment “Born in a Trunk” where she told stories about her career. She also had a chat with a “surprise” guest every week. Van Dyke did some stand up and also showed up in sketches throughout the show with Judy. “Maybe I’ll Come Back” was chosen as the closing song over CBS objections, preferring her iconic “Over the Rainbow.”

I’m not sure why it changed after all the hoopla about trying to make producers move, but the show was taped at Studio 43 in Los Angeles. The studio underwent a $100,000 renovation for the show. Some of the changes were necessary and some were silly. A revolving stage was created and raised a bit which made sense. Judy’s dressing room was a replica of her Brentwood home which seems unnecessary and the hallway from her room to the stage was the yellow brick road.

Judy did put her foot down about who her first guest would be; she wanted her old partner Mickey Rooney. It was filmed that way, but the way the episodes were aired made it look like the tenth episode. The seventh show taped with Donald O’Connor was the first episode that aired.

The taping of the first show with Rooney included a star-studded audience including Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, Clint Eastwood, Agnes Moorehead, Dick Van Dyke, Natalie Wood and gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons. For this opening, Judy wanted to have Cary Grant in the audience as well and introduce her with his iconic “Judy! Judy! Judy!.” Grant, however, passed because he had never actually said this line in any movie and he was tired of everyone associating it with him.

Schlatter was fired after a month and a half. Norman Jewison came in for the next eight shows which he indicated was all he was willing to do.

He had not liked Van Dyke’s jokes about Garland’s shortcomings, and he introduced a segment “Be My Guest” which Mel Torme wrote to allow Garland and her guest to perform together. Van Dyke was not popular with viewing audiences, so he was also gone as were many of the writers and the choreographer.

Bill Colleran jumped in as producer for episode 14 while the other episodes were still airing. He would remain with the show until it was canceled. Once again, the format was changed, focusing on Garland’s musical performances. Sometimes comedy was part of the show but only when the guest star was a comic like Bob Newhart or Shelley Berman.

Ratings had not increased through all of these massive changes, and the show was canceled before the end of January. The final seven shows were taped after the crew knew the show was done. At this point, the show was basically just Judy or Judy and a guest singing for sixty minutes, and the title became Judy Garland in Concert.

Torme stuck with the show through the entire mess and then was fired after 22 episodes when everyone knew there were only four left, and he was replaced by Bobby Cole, someone Garland had just met. He filed for breach of contract and included the details in his memoir. Fans reported they loved Garland, they just didn’t like anything else about the show.

Critics were of differing opinions. The San Francisco Chronicle characterized the show as “tasteful, elegant and exciting.” while the New York Herald Tribune wrote that “Miss Garland is fine, just fine. The rest of the show, however, needs help.”

Fans of the show formed a “Save The Judy Garland Show committee” and organized an early letter-writing campaign on behalf of the series, but their efforts were not enough to prevent the show from being cancelled. The final Judy Garland Show, another concert episode, was broadcast on March 29, 1964.

Schlatter discussed his time on The Judy Garland Show. He was hired after working for the Dinah Shore Show. He said he encouraged the child in her to come out and the two of them had a lot of fun. He said the first five shows were filmed on time and under budget, but he got fired after they were done. CBS told him the shows were “too special.” They wanted Garland to show more warmth which Schlatter thought she already did. After he left, the show featured her sitting on stools and talking more rather than performing.

There seem to be a lot of reasons why the show only lasted one season. There was the revolving door with cast, writers, producers, and a lot of turmoil about the format of the show. CBS president James Aubrey was said to “intensely dislike” Judy for some reason and did not keep that a secret. The show was up against Bonanza on NBC which almost insured its demise. Bonanza was in the top ten, a very popular program. And, this was during a time when the family probably had one television and the family often gathered to watch it together Sunday nights. Most families are going to choose Bonanza over The Judy Garland Show.

While Judy needed the money, the pressures and stress filming this show did not help her mental health. As someone who had experienced addiction issues for a while, she had trouble dealing with the infighting and criticism of her show although most critics went out of their way to give her positive feedback. Sadly, within five years of the show being canceled, Garland was dead from an overdose of sleeping pills. It’s too bad that this show which might have brought her financial comfort and happiness just added to her stress in the entertainment business.

Dinah Shore: Fifties Icon

November 4, 2024March 16, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

This month we are taking a look at some of the biggest shows and personalities from the 1950s. We are beginning with Dinah Shore, a household name in the fifties.

Frances Rose Shore was born in 1916 in Tennessee. Her parents were Russian-Jewish shopkeepers. At eighteen months old, she was diagnosed with polio. The only treatment at the time was bed rest. She recovered under her mother’s nursing but retained a deformed foot and a limp. She loved to sing and often performed for customers at her parents’ store. Despite her limp, Dinah became active in athletics and was a cheerleader in high school.

She enrolled at Vanderbilt University, graduating in 1938 with a degree in sociology. Singing was still her passion, and she visited the Grand Ole Opry, making her radio debut on WSM, a Nashville station. She moved to New York, auditioning for many roles. She often sang the song “Dinah,” and when DJ Martin Block couldn’t remember her name, he asked for the Dinah girl and Dinah became her stage name. She sang with Frank Sinatra at WNEW in New York and performed with the Xavier Cugat orchestra in 1940. That year she also became a regular on “Time to Smile,” Eddie Cantor’s radio show. He taught her to develop comedic timing and how to connect with an audience.

In 1948 she was offered her own radio show, “Call for Music.” She also performed for the troops during WWII.

Shore married actor Robert Montgomery in 1943, and they were married almost twenty years. Sinatra’s valet claimed Shore and Sinatra had a long-term affair throughout the 1950s but I could never verify that.

During the fifties, Shore signed on with RCA Victor to record her music. “Love and Marriage” and “Whatever Lola Wants” were top 20 hits in 1955. In 1959 she went to Capitol Records for three years.

“The Dinah Shore Show” aired on radio on NBC in 1950. She was a very popular singer and entertainer throughout the fifties and sixties. The seventies transitioned her to television where she hosted Dinah’s Place from 1970-74, Dinah and Friends in syndication from 1974-1980. She talked with celebrities and interviewed experts about wellness, exercise, and home décor. Frank Sinatra shared his famous spaghetti sauce recipe, and Ginger Rogers showed her how to throw a clay pot. Tina Turner, David Bowie, and Iggy Pop all performed on her show. Shore won six Emmys for her television work.

During the sixties, Shore was romantically involved with Dick Martin, Eddie Fisher, and Rod Taylor and had a short marriage with Maurice Smith, a tennis player. She and Burt Reynolds had a well-known relationship for four years during the early seventies.

From 1989-1992 she hosted one additional show, A Conversation with Dinah on cable TNN.

In later years she was also able to spend more time on her hobbies of painting and cooking.

Shore was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1993 and passed away in 1994 from the disease. Her Palm Springs mid-century modern home was purchased by Leonard DeCaprio in 2014.

While Shore was seen on television more in the seventies, in the fifties she was beloved for her singing career and that’s when she became a household name.

Good Evening Alfred Hitchcock

October 14, 2024March 14, 2024 / thewritelife61 / 2 Comments

In October, we are tackling a blog series on Eerie Shows. It would be almost impossible to not include Alfred Hitchcock Presents which was on television for a decade.

The show premiered in 1955. Hitchcock had been directing films for more than three decades at that time. The series experienced several changes. It began as Alfred Hitchcock Presents on CBS but would switch both nights and networks during its run. In 1962 it became an hour-long show and was called The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

Many fans recall the opening. There is a line-drawing of Hitchcock’s profile with the “Funeral March of a Marionette” playing in the background. Hitchcock appears at the edge of the screen and walks to the center where he fades into the caricature line drawing. Then he said, “Good evening.” The silhouette was one that Alfred drew. He began his entertainment career illustrating title cards for silent movies.

Hitchcock himself directed 17 of the episodes of the series. Two of those were nominated for Emmy awards: “The Case of Mr. Pelham” in 1955 with Tom Ewell and “Lamb to the Slaughter” in 1958 with Barbara Bel Geddes.

Hitchcock’s job during this series was to introduce the story and then to wrap it up at the end. Both the openings and closings were written by James B. Allardice. Allardice wrote for 38 different shows, many of them very popular series in the fifties and sixties. Norman Lloyd, who produced the show and appeared in five episodes, said Hitchcock respected Allardice so much that he never even changed a comma that he wrote.

The network demanded that if a character got away with murder during the show, then Hitchcock would let them know during the closing that he was eventually brought to justice; in the TV Guide, Hitch described this as “a necessary gesture to morality.” Lloyd gave an example of this in a Television Academy interview. In one episode, a woman kills her husband with a frozen lamb’s leg and gets away with it. At the end of the show, Alfred explains that she later remarried and tried the same trick again but when she took out the leg and hit her husband with it, it was not frozen enough, so he caught her in the act and turned her in.

The episodes were not your average thriller shows. They included drama, suspense, and humor. Audiences never knew just “who done it” till the end.

The show debuted on CBS on Sunday nights for five years, up against drama anthologies for two years and then competing with The Dinah Shore Show for three years. For the next two seasons it moved to NBC on Tuesday nights. It aired against The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis on CBS those years and against Wyatt Earp on ABC. For three months it went back to CBS on Thursdays before moving to Fridays on CBS the next season with The Price is Right and 77 Sunset Strip. The ninth year found it on CBS on Fridays with little competition and the final year it showed up on NBC’s schedule on Mondays against Ben Casey. I could never find the reason for cancelling the show. I’m assuming ratings began to decline but if anyone knows, I’d love to hear it.

NBC chose not to air a 1962 episode called “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” because the sponsor felt the ending was too gruesome. In the episode, a magician’s helper is supposed to help in a trick where he “sawed” a woman in half, but he doesn’t realize he truly saws her in half.

As you might guess, with a new story every week, many celebrities appeared on the show including Charles Bronson, Bette Davis, Bruce Dern, Robert Duvall, Clint Eastwood, Peter Falk, Joan Fontaine, Peter Lorre, Walter Matthau, Steve McQueen, Vera Miles, Claude Rains, Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds, Thelma Ritter, George Segal, and Jessica Tandy.

In addition to the Hitchcock-directed episodes, the show received Emmy nominations for Best Series four times. In 1956 it was up for Best Action or Adventure Series, but it lost to Disneyland. The following year found the show in the Best Series – Half Hour or Less category, but it lost to The Phil Silvers Show. 1958 found it in the category of Best Dramatic Anthology Series. You would think that would be a no-brainer win for this show, but it lost to Playhouse 90. It had its fourth category nomination in 1959 as Best Dramatic Series – Less Than One Hour and lost to Alcoa Theatre. I guess the Emmy committee had a hard time determining categories for a few years.

In a different twist, NBC tried to air the show again in 1985. Hitchcock had passed away five years earlier from renal failure. A made-for-TV-movie combined new stories with colorized segments from the original show. It lasted a year before NBC canceled it. USA picked it up for three more seasons.

The original show can still be seen on a few different networks including MeTV.

With Hitchcock’s popularity in 1955, it’s no wonder that this show was a successful series for a decade. The episodes were well written, and they had a wonderful cast of actors. Many people probably tuned in just to see Hitchcock, and his personality was larger than life, even if his behavior was a bit despicable at times. One of Alfred’s quotes about the show was that “television has brought murder back into the home – where it belongs.”

Father of the Bride is Better on the Big Screen

December 14, 2020 / thewritelife61 / 5 Comments

We’re continuing our blog series, “The Movie Came First.” Today we get to learn more about Father of the Bride. Whether you gravitate to Elizabeth Taylor and Spencer Tracy in the original movie or Kimberly Williams-Paisley and Steve Martin in the remake, you might have enjoyed the television show which aired in 1961. All three versions feature a father whose daughter is getting married, as he deals with the emotional pain of losing her, the financial reparations, and the disorganized turmoil that goes into planning the wedding.

The movie starred Elizabeth Taylor as Kay Banks with Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett as her parents, Ellie and Stanley. Her fiancé Buckley Dunstan is portrayed by Don Taylor and his parents are Billie Burke and Moroni Olsen as Doris and Herbert. The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (William Holden won for Sunset Boulevard), Best Picture (All About Eve was the winner), and Best Writing, Screenplay (also Sunset Boulevard as winner).

Stanley narrates his feelings and perspectives throughout the film. For example, he talks about losing his daughter: “Who giveth this woman? This woman. But she’s not a woman. She’s still a child. And she’s leaving us. What’s it going to be like to come home and not find her? Not to hear her voice calling “Hi Pops” as I come in? I suddenly realized what I was doing. I was giving up Kay. Something inside me began to hurt.”

He also shares his thoughts on weddings: “I would like to say a few words about weddings. I’ve just been through one. Not my own. My daughter’s. Someday in the far future I may be able to remember it with tender indulgence, but not now. I always used to think that marriages were a simple affair. Boy meets girl. Fall in love. They get married. Have babies. Eventually the babies grow up and meet other babies. They fall in love. Get married. Have babies. And so on and on and on. Looked at that way, it’s not only simple, it’s downright monotonous. But I was wrong.”

In 1961 the movie was reworked for the small screen, produced by MGM Television. The characters remained the same. In the tv version, Leon Ames was Stanley, Ruth Warrick was Ellie, Myrna Fahey was Kay, Burt Metcalfe was Buckley, Ransom Sherman was Herbert, and Lurene Tuttle was Doris. We also see Ruby Dandridge cast as their housekeeper Delilah and Rickie Sorenson as Tommy, Kay’s little brother.

The first shows in season one featured an animated cupid holding a magic wand to start the show, but the season transitioned into a photo of the entire cast gathered on the Banks’ staircase.

The sponsors of the show were Campbell’s Soups and General Mills.

I was surprised to see that there were 24 writers but then in looking through the episodes, the majority of the shows mirrored the movie so closely it was more of rewriting than writing.

The show aired on Friday nights and its competition was The Dinah Shore Show and 77 Sunset Strip. I would have thought given the adult themes of 77 Sunset Strip, this show would be a popular family show to watch. However, the ratings must not have been very good, because it was cancelled after one season. Not many of the shows debuting this fall even lasted the season. In addition to Father of the Bride, the following shows were cancelled: The Bob Cummings Show, The Hathaways, Holiday Lodge, Ichabod and Me, Margie, Mrs. G Goes to College, Oh, Those Bells, One Happy Family, Room for One More, and Window on Main Street. The successful season debuts included Car 54 Where Are You?, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mr. Ed, Hazel, The Lucy Show, and The Joey Bishop Show.

YouTube has the opening credits, but I could not find anywhere to watch episodes of this show. I guess my recommendation would be to forget about the show and watch the 1950 or 1991 movie version. I’m not often a fan of reboots of movies, but I love the Steve Martin-Diane Keaton version of this movie, so both films are great choices. Better yet, watch them both and then choose your favorite.